


Brightness of Colour

by SonnenFlower



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Art, Changing POV, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Gen, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, Illnesses, Paralysis, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27367948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonnenFlower/pseuds/SonnenFlower
Summary: Sometimes all you need is just a little more colour in a gray world full of pain to brighten it up.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Dean Thomas
Comments: 16
Kudos: 22
Collections: Expecto Patronum Fest 2020





	Brightness of Colour

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Expecto Patronum Fest 2020 and is mostly based on my own story (sadly i never flow a broom though). If you have any questions feel encouraged to ask. The idea of this fest was to bring a bit more of every day strugle to our favourite fantasy world and I'm happy to explain more, if something was left unclear.
> 
> A great thank you to my amazing last minute beta StoriesbyNessie all mistakes remaining are my own.
> 
> Also a big thanks to LunaRavenclaw9 for this amazing piece of art.

[](https://www.flickr.com/gp/186947346@N07/0N70v1)

_ Waking up hurting was not a bad thing usually. I mean, we were practising for the deciding match of the season against Ravenclaw and we flew every day at that point - twice if possible. Waking up with hurting muscles was more usual than waking up without.  _

_ So when the final game arrived and my shoulder was hurting in the morning I didn’t think much of it. I had some rough tackles at the last practice two days ago and every athlete knew the second day was the worst. Why we had a practice that close to the final I don’t know. Probably no one really thought about it beforehand.  _

_ I went to breakfast - my shoulder still hurting - it would be the last meal I could eat with my right hand. It sounds like a trivial thing, sitting with your friends, being nervous and putting another sausage on your plate while eating scrambled eggs with the other hand. It is not, as I learned just a few hours later. _

_ The pain in my shoulder only got worse during the game. Had I dislocated it without realising? I mean, this ripping pain felt kind of familiar, but till then I never dislocated my shoulder without noticing. I mean sure, I had had a dislocated shoulder before, but the hurt usually meant that you’d realise it right away. But while Harry still didn’t seem as if he had spotted the snitch, I had a job to do. I needed to score! There was no room for pain. If I’d known back then it would be the last time the pain would be manageable without aid, maybe I would have taken a second to appreciate it, but I didn’t. I just flew on. The cup was all that mattered! Ha- I wish it would always be that easy. _

_ When we came back to Gryffindor tower someone had organised a celebration - probably Seamus, but even if it had been him, I couldn’t remember for the life of me. I still know we won though. I scored the deciding hoop that made it possible for Harry to catch our victory. I still know I fainted right and shot left. It was great, it was match-winning, it was the last time I‘ve ridden a broom. _

_ ——— _

„Hi Sea-, have you seen Dean around? I wanted to give him something.”

“Sorry Harry, haven’t seen that dickhead since he stormed out of the Great Hall - honestly I don’t know what to do with him at this point, I’m his best mate-'' Harry raised his eyebrow at that. Best mate his arse, but Seamus just ignored him “but I don’t know how to help him anymore. I know he feels like shit, I know I can’t know how bad it really is, but if I could I would take it in his stead this instant. It’s just not enough. I’m just not enough.”

Harry didn’t only feel a bit lacking in the situation he had stumbled into. He had just had an idea to cheer one of his friends up. He was definitely not equipped for deep psychological meltdowns. This was Madam Pomfrey's field of expertise, right? He was fifteen goddammit. Having an idea to help a hurting friend was enough for one day, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t even know what to do with a crisis like this! Where was Hermione when one needed her?

“I’m sure you are, Seamus. He’s just hurting. Not that I know all that much about that,” for some reason unknown to Harry Seamus snorted at this point “but I think he’s just lashing out. You are the most important person to him, so you will get the most of it, I guess.” Harry was quite satisfied with his reasoning, but Seamus was looking very strangely at him. 

“When have you become this sensitive, Harry?” Seamus' look wasn’t mocking, just curious, which made Harry think this was the best moment to excuse himself and finally find Dean.

_ ——— _

_ That night after the game was the first time I couldn't use my right arm to eat. Someone had insisted on food for the players for this party to prevent seven teenage athletes from drinking butterbeer on an empty stomach. I still think it was Hermione's idea. The twins had nearly trashed the whole common room in a sugar rush after the game before.  _

_ Anyway that night someone had organised goulash for everyone and it was godsend. Just raising my spoon wasn’t really working. But we had just played an exhausting game, of course something hurt! It was probably just a pulled muscle. Well maybe a bit more, this hurt quite a lot, but anyway, we had won the Quidditch Cup, the season was over and I had a ton of time to recover and what was the problem with using your left hand for a spoon anyway. It would be better soon enough. Godric had I been mistaken. _

_ When I woke up the next day and it had only gotten worse Harry gave me the password for the prefect's bathroom, so I could soak in a hot bath and relax. I did relax and it was heavenly, but my shoulder was still getting worse over the next days and when Professor McGonagal noticed me trying a transfiguration with my left hand - I couldn’t do anything more than move my fingers without tears shooting in my eyes at that point - she had sent me off to see Madam Pomfrey. Well, she did send me off directly, not without a stern talk for letting it become that bad without seeking help. _

_ Sitting in the hospital wing I had to wait for Madam Pomfrey to patch up a potions accident before it was my turn. I didn’t mind all that much, she had a ton of Quidditch magazines lying around. Sure there were other magazines as well, but who would be interested in “10 ways to cast the perfect cat eye” or “First Lady shocks with Slytherin GREEN robe at the state banquette!”? _

_ Who was I to know back then, that the colour choice of the First Lady was truly shocking and what length one was willing to take not to think about medical stuff while waiting for another healer's appointment? Ball gowns can be surprisingly interesting when you start getting into it! _

_ ——— _

There were a myriad of places Dean could be hiding at, but Harry was determined to go through with his idea. Between healers appointments and a new mixture of potions every other week, the other boy had withdrawn more and more from them. So much so that bedtime was often enough the only time of the day Harry would see the other boy. And their new bedtime ritual was more heartbreaking than not- resulting in Dean usually not saying a word. 

Harry couldn’t say he knew what Dean was going through, but he knew a thing or two about withdrawing from the world because everything else felt like too much, and if he had learned anything from Sirius' death, then it was that retrieving into yourself didn’t solve anything. It only made the world look scarier and yourself feel lonelier. 

He wouldn’t take it! And with that thought, he took the Marauders Map to search for the idiot. He’d find him, if he wanted to be found or not.

_ ——— _

_ Time at a healers office goes differently. I don’t know how, or why, I just know that it is true. All that time I’ve spent there, waiting for another test, another spell just condenses in my memory into something that feels like a montage out of this movie my little sisters made me watch the summer before, what was it - Clueless I think! All my healers' appointments condensed in a three and a half minute clip to My Chemical Romance's “I’m not okay” that somehow still felt like it lasted half a lifetime. _

_ In the end, all the appointments never changed anything anyway. They sat me down to explain that I have some illness no one knew where it was coming from, neither Muggle nor wizarding kind, and still both got it sometimes. It was just very rare and there was not much to be done but to wait and see what happens next. In the meantime, I got pain potions that were meant to prevent the pain from burning itself into my brain so strongly; I would still feel it, even though the reason for it might be long gone. _

_ Those potions came with a lengthy talk of Madam Pomfrey to never let anyone else try them since they were heavily addictive. But, as the healer at Sankt Mungos had so gracefully explained, a withdrawal would be the lesser evil than a pain memory. Wasn’t that great news? They couldn’t do anything about the paralysis though. In a span of a few weeks, I got so good doing stuff left-handed, I haven’t stopped using my left hand for a spoon till this date. _

_ ——— _

Harry spotted Deans dot on a hill next to the Black Lake. It was one of Dean's favourite spots if he wanted to draw before all of this had happened. At that time the place had indicated a happy Dean lost in his art- nowadays it was the complete opposite. For Dean to venture out there meant mourning everything he had lost and surprisingly that never helped his moods. But today, Harry thought, that might actually be the perfect spot for their meeting.

It wasn’t hard to find Dean, once Harry had made it to the secluded spot. Not many people knew how to come up here, but without actually being there one couldn’t be spotted. That was one reason Dean had loved this spot so much, he was usually left to his own device to get lost in his art. The other reason was the spectacular view over the Black Lake and the adjoining hills.

The boy Harry was looking for was sitting cross-legged on the ground, his sketchbook on his lap and if Harry hadn’t known better, it would have been a picture of absolute peace. But Harry knew better and that's why he saw how lifeless Dean's right arm was hanging at his side, how much he clenched the pencil in his left hand, how teary his eyes were, how much solid gray was on the page and how few actual lines.

When Harry came closer, Dean looked up and his expression changed from utter helplessness to one of fury. 

“What do you want, Potter?”

“Actually I was searching for you.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t want to be found.” Dean slammed his pencil on the ground with a force that went through his whole body. The look of pain that coloured his face for a few seconds before it morphed back into even more fury nearly broke Harry's heart. If he could just take some of his friend’s burden. “But now that you are obviously here to pity me, how can I humour you?”

Dean's words were spat to Harry’s feet, but he had learned long ago that a hurt animal would lash out, and the same was true for anyone of them. No wonder Seamus needed a break now and then. But pity was not what Harry was here for.

“I’m not here to pity you, Dean. I just want to help. You know I had an idea and I though-”

“Oh, the great Harry Potter had an idea. I’m sure the healers at Sankt Mungos will kiss the ground you walk on when they discover your new-found knowledge about healing. I’m sure you know something they don’t. I mean you are the Chosen One right? So tell me, Oh Chosen One, what do I need to do, for you to free me of my inadequacies?”

“Shut it, Dean. I’m really trying to help here!”

“Well, as the healers said before, there is nothing that can help me.”

_ ——— _

_ The nights were the worst. Especially at first. I didn’t sleep for more than thirty minutes straight and let me tell you- a combination of pain, sleep deprivation, puberty and potions is nothing you ever want to experience, neither for yourself nor with one of your friends. Later Seamus would say that the best thing they should have done back then would have been to box me into one of the cupboards and leave me there for a month or two. Looking back, I still think it was a hilarious joke - somehow Harry hadn’t at the time - but it might also have been a good idea.  _

_ In want of that option, we came up with another idea. The only thing that felt like we could fix ,was the sleeping problem. Since I was already on too many (addictive) potions, that would inevitably be bad if we’d add a sleeping potion to the mix so we came up with something else. What woke me up most of the time was myself moving while being asleep. Moving would always result in a motion that would reach my shoulder this way or another and that hurt so much I’d wake up. _

_ First, we tried fixating my shoulder, so that there would be less mobility but that didn’t help when I tried to roll on my right side - which was still my preferred sleeping position back then.  _

_ It was actually Ron who came up with the solution.  _

_ “You just need to stop moving altogether, Dean.” he had said in a moment of utter frustration and with that, an idea was born. Every night when I went to sleep my friends would cast a petrificus totalus on me so that I couldn’t move at night.  _

_ Sure there were some downsides to this as well, which I learned the hard way when I woke up in need of a piss one night but couldn’t move. That was the time we decided to change from a petrificus totalus to a sticking charm. That still prevented me from moving, but let me the opportunity to call for someone if I needed to be released in the middle of the night. All in all, it helped me a great deal and I got a good chunk of sleep again every night, which turned me back into a functional human being bit by bit. Still, my friends hated this praxis. I could see their reluctance every night in their eyes, but they could see that it helped, so they stuck with it anyway. _

_ Helping, we all learned, was just as hard as needing help. _

_ ——— _

“For fuck’s sake Dean, pull your head out of your arse for just one second, will you? I’m here to give you something and then I’ll leave you in peace, promise, but before that, you will listen to me, period.”

Dean just stared blankly at him, which Harry took as meaning he should go on. 

“I know, that I can’t know what exactly you are going through, but you are closing yourself up, and I know a thing or two about that.”

He let himself sit on the ground next to Dean.

“We are your friends though, and that means we want to help you. All of us. It’s totally fine to be mad at the world, or to want to be on your own, just tell us, ok?”

Dean just nodded slowly, but didn’t say anything, while they sat there on the grassy ground looking out on the lake, Dean’s sketchbook still open on his knees.

“I wish I could just be ok for all of you, you know? Just be happy and worry no one.” Dean's voice sounded paper-thin. “Sometimes I wish the bunch of you would just stop caring.”

The wind carried the admission away, as soon as it had left his lips. 

“I know that feeling, but that’s not how this works and it’s not what you really want, we both know that. What you really want is everything to be back to normal, but again that's not how it works, right?”

“I know.” 

Silence settled over them once more while the wind was blowing around them.

“You know how much I miss it?” again it was Dean to break the silence. “The drawing, I mean. Probably even more than flying.”

“Actually I thought so- and don’t get mad at me but that's what my idea is about.”

Harry was really scared Dean would explode again, but the fury seemed to have left him; he just raised an eyebrow and looked mildly interested, which was way more than Harry had hoped for.

“Ok so let me finish explaining before you say anything ok?” 

Dean only nodded once more. 

“So I know you miss drawing and you always did landscapes, and lions and all that realistic stuff, but last summer we were at the Tate in London. I mean Ron, Hermione and I were at the Tate because Hermione thought it would be good for me or something, anyway, doesn’t matter-” 

Merlin, he was babbling like a baboon, he really needed to explain himself better. 

“What I’m trying to say is there was this huge picture from someone named Jason Pollock or was it Jackson? Never mind, this picture was just made from drops. Like drops of paint, over and over the whole thing! And when we left there was this area where you could try stuff and they had canvases there, blank ones, where you would pin balloons that were filled with colours. They threw darts at it to make them burst, but I thought, maybe you could try something like that? You could do all of that with your left hand and your wand and you would be able to make art again without getting frustrated. Or at least that was my idea.”

After his monologue, Harry felt a bit lost. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he just started to pull stuff from his pocket and started to resize it. A canvas, colours, balloons, some brushes and a spatula-he didn’t even know what it was for- but the girl at the arts and crafts shop in Hogsmeade had said that everyone would need one, so he had gotten one of those as well.

“Thank you, Harry.” Dean's voice was so brittle, it startled Harry for a second until he looked up and saw tears glinting in Dean’s eyes again. “Thank you so much.”

“You are very welcome!” And with that Harry got up and left. This was something Dean had to try on his own.

———

_ The hardest part of needing help is not asking for it, as I had to learn. A lot of people assume it is and they are not exactly wrong. Asking for help is hard, but accepting it is so much harder than asking. Accepting help means to admit that one needs help as much as letting someone else help to carry your burden. It makes life so much easier, but it’s the hardest thing one can do. _

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, critique and Kudos are always welcome.
> 
> If you want to contact me directly or get some behind the scenes information check out my authors page Sonnen Flower at fb.


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